Church Of St Peter

Church of St. Peter

Parish church of Arnesby. The building is partially 12th century in origin, though the exterior is no earlier than the late 13th century and incorporates several later additions. The church was enlarged in 1828 with the addition of a north aisle and underwent restoration in 1866 under the architect W. Millican. Construction is largely of cobblestone with limestone dressings, except for the tower which is built throughout of coursed and squared limestone. The roofs are slate over the north aisle and chancel, and leaded elsewhere.

The church comprises a west tower, nave with two aisles and clerestory, and chancel.

The tower dates to around 1300. It rises in two tall stages with angle buttresses that terminate in pinnacles to the embattled parapet. A wide and many-shafted west doorway features an outer hood mould with corbel heads, though the shafts appear to be renewals while the arch mouldings are original. Above the doorway is a 3-light window, and a crocketed niche. Paired lights light the bell chamber. A stair turret occupies the south-east angle.

The south aisle dates to around 1300 and is constructed of cobble with two ashlar bands. It has a doorway in a 2-centred archway and a Y-traceried west window. The south-east window is a 2-light Decorated opening, renewed in the Victorian period, with a 3-light window to the east, also a Victorian renewal. One lancet in the south wall appears to be original. The paired clerestory lights and parapet above are probably Victorian remodellings. Buttresses support the south aisle wall.

The chancel is early 14th century. It features low side windows to the south-west and north-west, with heavy transomed, 2-centred arched priests door to the south and coarse Perpendicular tracery in the south windows. The east window is Decorated in style but renewed, containing 4-lights with reticulated tracery. A coped east gable is finished with a cross finial, and in the gable apex is a 14th-century stone statue of St. Peter in a niche, carved with keys and a blessing hand, now much weathered. The north vestry has a gathered chimney executed in the medieval style.

The north aisle and its doorway are largely a rebuilding of 1829 that incorporated fabric from an earlier aisle.

Inside, the Early English tower arch is notably steep, double chamfered with inner cylindrical shafts. The steeply pitched profile of the original roof is visible above it, with one foiled light in the gable. Another blocked window lies outside the original gable line and is partially cut by the present roof. The nave arcade contains three bays. The two western bays are early 12th century, with high square bases supporting sturdy low cylindrical shafts with scalloped capitals and overhanging square abaci. The third bay on each side is later, probably late 13th century, though the southern bay appears to be the earlier of the two, with filleted responds and semi-octagonal responds to the north. Between the bays is a section of straight wall that may have been the respond to the original chancel arch, suggesting this was an eastern extension of the church. The roof is possibly 15th century, constructed with king posts and struts from tie beams on braces, with wooden bosses.

The inner archway of the north door is a 2-centred archway contained within a taller, narrow round-headed arch. The deeper sill of the original east window of the north aisle remains visible, alongside a small foiled piscina. The south doorway is contained in an only slightly cambered arch. The chancel arch is double chamfered, dying into the wall without corbels or responds. The priests door has an unusually mannered design with a shouldered lintel, possibly 16th century in date, its hood mould forming part of a continuous sill band. The sedilia feature cusped ogee arches with a double piscina alongside, incorporating trefoiled niches with quatrefoil panels above. A foiled Easter sepulchre is located to the north.

The font is 13th century, a roughly chamfered circular basin on a plain base with a Victorian pyramidal wooden cover. The chancel fittings, including the heavy wooden pulpit, are all from the 1866 restoration. The stained glass is all by the same unattributed hand, working in the style of the studio of Heaton, Butler and Bayne. These windows date from 1863 to 1874 and include the west tower window, two south aisle windows, and south chancel windows, all displaying similar characteristics with large portrait figures of saints and prophets, and narrative scenes relating to the main figures below.